Slam Poetry

How shit I am: a poet on her first slam

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Prolific, award-winning Palmerston North poet Paula Harris somehow manages to be stroppy and properly vulnerable all at once. Here, she writes about her first slam competition – and why she cried all the way home.  I am old enough to have given birth to most of the people here. Sure, there’s a couple of parents … Read more

Roses are red, violets are fucken blue: Poetry Slam is coming to a stage near you

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Slam poetry! It’s raw, it’s rough, and it’s also a wildly popular live entertainment, writes Ben Fagan, who is masterminding slam events across the country this month. One of my favourite poetry moments happened a few years ago. I was at a slam in Wellington. It was packed. Someone had just finished performing and there was a … Read more

‘I was so angry that it was so difficult!’ Poet Hollie McNish talks motherhood with Holly Walker

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Hollie McNish – author, poet, activist, mother, spoken word artist, winner of the Ted Hughes Award – is coming to New Zealand to speak at Word Christchurch. Author and Spinoff Parents contributor Holly Walker caught up with McNish to discuss motherhood and writing. When I read award-winning British poet Hollie McNish’s ‘poetic memoir’ about motherhood, … Read more

The stars of Auckland’s spoken-word poetry scene

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Amanda Robinson meets five Auckland writers who are stunningly good at a much-derided art form – spoken word poetry. Perhaps the most cringeworthy phrase in all the arts, the one that makes everyone recoil, including most poets, is “spoken word poetry”. But when it’s good, when a poem reading ends and you realise you’ve been … Read more

Ghostbusters + The Fresh Prince + Thriller = A multimedia performance about nostalgia and grief

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Henry Oliver talks to Ross Sutherland, a British poet whose VHS performance piece Standby for Tape Back-Up, a multimedia meditation on memory, meaning and grief, is on in Auckland and Wellington this week. A little over ten years ago, with a healthy dose of mid-00s meta-irony, a group of friends and I get stoned and … Read more

Poetry Idol’s organiser is shocked and saddened to learn that slam poetry is “dumb-ass and not good”

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Yesterday we published a furious denunciation of slam poetry which felt like it demanded a counterweight. Comedian and performance poet Penny Ashton – the founder of Poetry Idol – offered her services, and we gladly accepted. Today I happily pulled on my bohemian attire – including a T-Shirt that says “Feminist Buzz Killing It” – and sat down … Read more